I recently facilitated a workshop on how to manage difficult conversations. It’s one I created a few years ago and have refined over time as I’ve learned new things; life is one long work in progress. One minute you’re cruising along, going the speed limit and then, BAM - there’s an uncomfortable moment, invisible until it hits your windshield.

I’m always surprised when I review the materials how helpful it is to reload on my collection of reliable and generous “things to consider” when you have the grace of time to prepare for a difficult conversation. Time to think through how much our past experience and the deep grooves of patterned behavior keep us stuck in ways that dictate how we naturally respond, moment by moment. How having a tool kit in your closet doesn’t mean you’ll have the tool at the ready when you need it most.

We are works in progress.

As I ran through the “tips and tricks” section - which desperately needs a new name because we are not show animals or circus acts - it occurred to me that the hardest conversations I’ve ever had are the ones I didn’t have.

The ones I stewed on, brewed on, couldn’t sleep over or beat myself up about. The ones I thought might make me sound stupid, or damage my career. The ones I didn’t get a chance to have because a rift or distance made it less of a need but more of a shoulda, coulda, woulda.

The times I remained silent while my brain ran on all pistons, are the most difficult conversations I’ve ever had. The conversations with myself.

This realization flickered on the brightest lightbulb moment I’ve had in ages - if the hardest conversations are the ones we don’t have, it stands to reason that the conversations we do have, are that much easier.

Cue - “I will survive” - because I have and you have too.

We are works in progress, and progress we have made.

I’ve had a post-it note above my desk for years that reads:

A challenge to myself and one I’ve shared with others. If indeed the most difficult conversation is the one you haven’t had - what’s stopping you? What are giving up by letting it be in the driver’s seat?

Silence is at times golden (especially for me) but at times, it’s also poison.

Where are you being like Godot - waiting for something that will never arrive?

At one time, my husband’s garden looked a lot like I imagine it does on the inside of his head.

MUST HAVE MORE BASIL - OH LOOK - WHAT’S THAT?

Today, his garden looks more like the inside of mine. Operational.

These past few summers he’s been upping his game. Practiced, wiser. Still at times panicked over ‘never enough’.

As of today the lettuce and snap peas have been picked and eaten, the blueberries too. The flowers have unfurled their brilliant blooms and the cucumbers and tomatoes are catching their stride. (So many tomatoes.)

Which brings me to the neighborhood rabbit(s). I only ever see one at a time but they must have a family back home. They are well fed and have joyfully eaten their way through the enclosure. I imagine small red and white checked napkins tied neatly underneath their soft chins.

I suggested to Roland that he build the rabbits a parallel garden of their own, loaded with all the stuff they seem to like best. The lettuce, the kale, the tender new sprouts of any vegetable recently emerging from seed. All in line with the picture books I remember reading as a child, the time-tested diet of the neighborhood rabbit.

“We could paint them a sign, to welcome them in”, I said. Suburban hospitality.

As I was making dinner the other night, Roland wrote and sang a song about how I’m always right. Well, duh! Marital entertainment and a testament to his superb coping skills. And humor.

But he's also right - right now - as our CGO, Chief Garden Officer. He's been consulting his CIGTO, Chief Instagram Gardening Tips Officer, and now, like a good COO, Chief Operating Officer, he has everything in tidy rows. Flowers are strategically placed to invite bees where they're needed most and for pops of color in the sea of green. Tomato branches get clipped low, so the stems grow strong enough to deliver on the fruit that's coming. Vulnerable seedlings get mini protective wire mesh nets. And the basil, at last, has been thinned out. A feast for the eyes.

Do I miss corporate work? I must. Because I see it everywhere I look.

You can take the girl out of the office, you can’t take the office out of the girl.

Tell me, how is your garden growing this summer?

Any suggestions?

I’m all (corn) ears.

Where our titles collide, I think our hearts do too.

Here is a polished version of what I drafted after yoga last Friday, before I stumbled upon her post in my inbox:

Embracing respite from the fool’s errand of chasing work-life-balance, I am instead working on my actual balance. As I figure out how to fill my extra time, yoga has been a first responder.

My current favorite yoga teacher teaches on Friday mornings at 8am. It’s been a luxury the past two weeks not having to worry about class running over and seeping into those hours when the work clock strikes 9.

Today we did our usual warm-up - circling our hips and leg joints. Shifting to table top for cats and cows. Yoga, and its insider language. The poses, the vocab, the shorthand. The constant mental gymnastics of remembering what’s my left and what’s my right.

After some flipping and flopping and stretching and breathing the teacher said four of my favorite words in the English language, “sit back, child’s pose.”

I’ve never been a daily yogi so there are times when my body resists child’s pose. My shoulders can’t quite fathom reaching out overhead, outstretched. There are other times when it’s my hips or lower back that screech out in protest. My body decides from day to day, what will work, and how.

But when I’m springy enough, it’s the best feeling in the world. When I’m less springy, it’s a clear signal to do this more often. The sweet surrender. Heart reaching towards Mother Earth. This morning I imagined them conversing.

“Thanks for stopping by.”

“Thanks for slowing down.”

“People who move more slowly, tread more lightly.”

My first two weeks post full time work have felt like one long Saturday. So many errands, drawers cleaned out and reorganized, personal emails triaged, bills paid, hikes and bike rides and slow lunches on the deck.

Less work has gifted me the time to tread more lightly.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or over busy or over it all - the heat of summer, the asinine political circus careening towards midterms, AI and the disruption it’s unleashing in the workplace, just trying to get dinner on the table to cross the daily finish line... (That was cruel - I had you imagining how wonderful it feels to relax only to rev you up with all the reasons that make it feel near impossible these days…but I think this is my point.)

… Sit back, child’s pose.

That can be the whole practice. Not the pose. The permission.

I think that’s what Anne and I are circling back to, without ever having had a conversation. Most of what we carry, we’re allowed to put down for a hot second.

So if you’re reading this from inside the heat and the noise and the news and the meal that needs to get on the table, find your version of sit back, child’s pose. Something that lets your belly go soft. And your heart open. If only for a moment.

Think of the yard signs in quiet suburban neighborhoods filled with kids playing outside:

“Thanks for slowing down”

When my kids were little, all four of us had a crush on Michael Bublé. We lovingly referred to him as Bubbles. I have countless Bubbles stories; one made it into my annual holiday letter, circa 2006:

“They [my sons] have discovered an affection for Michael Bublé. Javier sits on the edge of the couch swinging his legs back and forth, singing along with him. Gabriel prefers to sing the standards on his own. After a haircut last week, Gabriel was reworking the words to ‘Feeling Good’ - ‘It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life. For me. And I’m looking fine.’”

Today marks my first day free from full-time corporate work. Full-time knowledge work. Full-time at a desk and being available all day work.

Day one, of a new dawn.

It’s been an emotional few weeks leading up to this day. All the snow that gets stirred up in the globe when you pick up your life and give it a shake, floating down around me.

Saying goodbyes, deleting files and emails, organizing folders and shredding documents, most of which could have gone ages ago but piled up behind me as I charged along. In Human Resources we live in a sea of names. Running my eyes over all those files, there they were. SO. MANY. PEOPLE.

People I interviewed. People I hired. People who challenged me, irritated me, taught me. People with complicated lives. People I adored. People who always opened an email or IM on Monday with ‘Happy Monday’!

The whole soup of civilization, shuffling and clicking through my hands as I went.

One of the hardest parts of the job - and the one I won’t miss - was coaching managers who had to let someone go. When they’d say, “This feels terrible, I’m so nervous,” I’d say, “That’s how you should feel. It would be a problem if you didn’t.”

Watching my departure date approach felt terrible and nerve-racking too. I’ll take my own knowing, that to feel otherwise would also signal a problem. I love working and I loved the work.

I'm proud of myself for making this leap. The moment it was clear, it was crystal clear. If you're in a similar mid-life space, wondering whether you can take a leap of your own, know that I stewed on this, joked about it and wished upon it off and on for years. Then months. Then one day, it was as obvious as a Christmas Tree lot in December. Of course it’s time.

Proof of the brewing is here in a post I wrote last May 2025 about how people live as if they have more than one life in the bank. The seed was planted. The plant grew. Slowly, as plants tend to do.

Here I am. Grown. Ready for this new day.

I’m bubbly on the inside! Excited to do the things I love most and the things I do best. I’m excited for time to rest.

I will continue to be a resourcing human, sharing what I uncover along the way. I will dive back into writing the book I started a year and a half ago. I will do some consulting, the parts of my life’s work I’d do for free if pressed. And Roland and I will head back to France so I can prep for the DELF B2, under the guise of testing out a winter in Provence.

Which is all to sum up why I’m humming, singing and reworking those lyrics Gabriel-style:

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life. For me. And I’m feeling DAMN LUCKY.

You’ll know when it’s time for you and I’ll be here to cheer you on!

*"Feeling Good," was written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse. Famously recorded by Nina Simone and by Michael Bublé. The rewrites are mine and Gabriel’s.

Have you ever held a Warrior 2 pose for any length of time? Arms outstretched at shoulder height, pushing in opposite directions. Lunging into one bent knee. Pelvis tucked. Core engaged. There I was in class holding this pose thinking, “How much longer are we going to do this?” Arms heavy. My shoulders yelling at me. Then our yoga teacher said,

“Find the calm in the effort.”

I could have kissed her!

Sometimes people say just the right thing, at just the right time, and you feel it right to your core.

My face softened. My shoulders relaxed, even as they were reaching out and forward and back, I could feel respite in their newly found buoyancy.

I carried these words, this mantra, out of class and into the wider world. I’m carrying them to you.

Find the calm in the effort.

I repeated it to myself as I pedaled my bike uphill. As I chopped and diced and prepped dinner when my stomach was already growling. As I labored over a reply to a work email. As I tried to fall asleep, when my body wasn’t quite ready for light’s out.

Find the calm in the effort.

The beauty for me is that it says - yes - go ahead and push yourself. Stay present in the effort. Life doesn’t happen on a soft cushion. So ….

Find the calm in the effort.

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I moved a few things around my to-do list for four months.

Nothing urgent. Nothing medical. Nothing that’s changed my life all that much now that they are done. And yet the lowest hanging fruit sat there for a long, long while.

As I stared at the list, I remembered my NLP teacher once shared a fix for this. A student said, “I have all these things hanging over my head”. The teacher replied, “Why not bring them down lower, so you can get them done?”

I decided to add a reminder to my calendar last Friday. When it popped up, I got to it. Check. Check. Check.

No longer over my head.

As you look toward the upcoming week, is there anything hanging over your head that you should just go on and get done?

Permission granted.

But I get it. Some things take 4 months + 5 minutes.

Last Thursday I watched the first match of the 2026 World Cup - Viva Mexico!

When the game ended, my husband and I headed out for an evening stroll along the Hudson River, through Croton Landing Park, where several soccer fields line the water. A few players, suited and booted, were repositioning the goal posts - getting a field set-up for play.

You can imagine the litany of eye-rolling repartee that ensued, “When was the last time you shifted your goals around?” “Are these goals we feel good about moving?” “Oh look, once again he’s moved the goalpost.”

We had a good laugh. Then spent the remainder of the walk debating the finery of goal setting.

(We know how to have fun!)

My husband speaks multiple languages and when there is something to mentally chew on, the banter usually begins with word play and definitions - what is a goal? What’s the difference between a goal and an aspiration?

We volley words, kicking around variations of meaning. (Ok, for me this is fun.)

Roland said, “Goals drive progress. Aspirations hinder progress.”

Hmm.

He enjoys making statements that invite a taking of sides, which he lovingly refers to as conversation.

Which led me to ask, “Does it feel different to miss a goal compared to falling short of an aspiration?”

Is an aspiration a goal wearing weekend wear?

Do aspirations live in the well worn shoes of resistance? I’m thinking of Ted Lasso’s “BELIEVE”. Considering what it took that team to begin to trust an aspiration, let alone the goal of winning the championship.

I aspire to finish this by Friday.

I’ve set a goal to finish this by Friday.

Words matter.

What goals are you working towards? Are they set up with all the responsibility of goal setting or are they getting aspiration level attention?

Ask yourself, how will I be different once it’s accomplished? This is worth imagining for more than 10 seconds. I don’t think we can bring something new to life without thinking about who we will be once it’s accomplished.

On your mark, get set, GO!

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I’ve said 1,000 goodbyes to my mother while I’ve been here.

I’ve made 1,000 promises to choose me.

A few of which I’ll forsake by noon.

The things written down and gone into the fire last night will be a slow burn.

We do not rid of things as quickly as fire.

We are continuous guardians of our life story, for better and worse.

We are the wardens of our own prisons.

While I can hear the jingle of the keys to the door on my waist clip, I often forget they are there.

This time in silence made their jingle undeniably audible.

I have the keys. I know how to use them.

I will be kinder to myself. I will listen to my gut, my body, my ruminations.

I will trust the slow burn of change and letting go and saying goodbye.

Something else, is already saying hello.

What would become audible for you, if you were to become quiet enough to hear it?

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Walking through Paris yesterday afternoon we came upon a handsome couple entwined in an embrace. It’s been 24 hours and I can still picture them - tall, smartly dressed, well coiffed. Nothing messy or desperate about them or their kiss - a real Robert Doisneau moment. I looked to the right and saw they were standing directly in front of a tattoo parlor. The red neon TATTOO sign illuminated behind them.

Damn, if only I’d had my camera at the ready, it would have made a perfect photograph. In lieu, my eyes made do, lens and shutter, capturing them.

Kisses and Tattoos.

Both can stick on you. Both can permanently stay on your skin. A romantic thought to ponder while ambling through the city of love and lights.

It was the first day of my vacation and what was sticking on me was work. It’s hard to push work aside when you first step away to focus on other avenues of life. We walked 12 miles in 5 hours, sat in two cafes, one park, and crossed several bridges; walking to unwind a mind still tied up with home.

When we take time off from work, our responsibilities slowly dissipate as we focus our attention elsewhere.

The couple yesterday didn’t choose to be a metaphor for me, it was my choice to hold them. On my best days and perhaps with the help of vacation brain, it’s easy to remember that we make things permanent through focused attention.

We set about our days, weeks, months, and years with intentions, things we want to do better, different. The challenge isn’t just getting good intentions to stick. It’s also noticing what already has - and deciding whether to keep them.

What’s already stuck on you?

What are you ready to make permanent?

This is where your attention merits some time.

I meant it. I believed it.

The following morning at school drop-off, my daughter announced it to every passing adult with the confidence of a town crier. My dad moved out. My dad left. My dad doesn’t live with us anymore. The school counselor passed us in the hallway and mouthed, more than spoke, “I’ll pull her out of class and check in on her.”

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She’d taken me at my word. No shame. No packaging. Just the truth, offered plainly, to whoever happened to be nearby.

This January, I headed home to California for my mom’s funeral.

When I’d mention being out of town or away from work, people would ask, “Vacation?” I’d say, “My mom’s funeral.” Nearly every time, a conversation stopper. A breath’s beat of silence, then recalibration, then condolences, then what? It varied. Widely.

I wasn’t fishing for anything. It was just the truth.

I was thinking about both of these instances two weeks ago en route to an annual company meeting. It would be several days with people I know in varying degrees and meant several days of: How have you been? What’s new? How are you?

I don’t see these as throwaway questions. Most people asking them genuinely want to know. And yet we’ve developed a vocabulary for not answering. Good! Busy! Can’t complain. Emoji!

We sand the edges. We make it easier for everyone, including ourselves.

I get it. Not every “How are you?” is an invitation to unpack a suitcase of dirty laundry. Not every hallway is a confessional. But somewhere between the whole truth and Fine, thanks is the middle ground of connection. I think sometimes we leave the opportunity to connect behind more often than we ought to.

Once while leading a workshop on deepening one’s listening skills, a participant offered FINE as an acronym - Feelings Inside Not Expressed. I laughed and later googled and there it was. Common enough but unknown to me. Until then.

My daughter knew this without knowing it. Say the thing. Don’t dress it up. Trust the other person to handle it.

She was five.

Did I instill, install, those boundaries for her by granting early permission? Not entirely, definitely a nature + nurture combo. She’s always been brave with her words. An attribute I admire, respect and if I’m being honest, am sometimes afraid of.

She’s more like my mom in that way. My mom with her directness, my daughter with her fearlessness - me, sandwiched between them. Me often more careful with my words, lest I regret having said the thing in my awkward attempt to say the thing. I am much more of a wait, perfect, then pounce.

This Mother's Day weekend, I have gratitude and love flowing to both of them. To one for being my mother, and the other for showing me what it looks like to enter a room without apologizing for the truth. In learning directness and bravery from both of them, what I've gotten better at over time is this hat trick: making room for my truth, your truth, and compassion for the gap between. Not easy. Worth practicing.

And so I return to the topic of small talk.

As I traveled to the company meeting, in the spirit of preparing before pouncing, I reminded myself that I can express multiple truths at once. The hard and the good, neither one canceling the other out.

My mom died last fall, and I’m doing okay.

This year has been particularly busy and stressful, and I’m happy to be here to see everyone and reconnect.

When someone asks how you’ve been - I hope you’ll give yourself a chance to tell them.

Not everything. Just something true.

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Grace had said, “She’s funny, but tough.”

The funeral was last Saturday - on a sandy beach, under a clear blue sky, sun in full shine.

Grace called me when she returned home to recount the afternoon. The loving, heart wrenching speeches, the parent’s pain, the support Grace felt from mentors and colleagues as she navigated the heft.

An eerie familiarity bubbled up as she spoke: melancholy, reflective.

My first job out of college was also in the line of social work. I wasn’t licensed or specifically trained for social work. After graduating with my degree in French, I moved across the country to Washington DC to work for a non-profit supporting mothers and children affected by HIV/AIDS.

I coordinated volunteers, managed afterschool activities, tracked grant money activity - mostly organizational work. But I also chose to be “a buddy” with a family; to feel connected to the work by something more than logistics.

Our director paired me with a mother and her son. The mother had unknowingly contracted the disease from her former husband. She passed it on to her son because she wasn’t aware she was ill during her pregnancy. This before pregnant mothers were tested regularly. Before there were drugs to mitigate the risk during delivery. This, the time before.

Dante was four years old when we met and while I was visiting, he often received medication and fluids via IV. He navigated our social engagements with ease, walking with the IV pole on wheels, showing off his toys and treasures. One afternoon I arrived to see a mini-basketball hoop set up in the living room. He invited me to play. IV be damned, he dribbled and took shots.

Ever the unrealistic optimist, I said, “Are you going to be a famous basketball player when you grow up?”

He said, “No, Jen. I’m going out to be an angel when I grow up.”

Last Saturday as I listened to Grace, Dante’s face returned to my mind and to my heart. Without a doubt, she’s met her own angel. Someone who she cared for. Supported. Distracted. Accepted. Challenged. And loved.

The one that will stay with her.

The one who stayed with me.

Who stays with you? Who are you showing up for?

In the words of Ram Dass, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

After all.

Dementia in most of its forms moves at an excruciatingly slow pace. At times, no perceptible pace at all. During my mother’s decline, a year could pass with her holding steady at one level of ability and cognition or another.

No change. No change. And then WHAM!

At one point, my dad said, “What gets me through is reminding myself that these are good old days”.

She could no longer remember why she took pills. The good old days.

She could no longer walk into a public restroom and be trusted to find her way out. The good old days.

She could no longer pour milk over Cheerios. The good old days.

She could no longer dress herself. The good old days.

More than a coping mechanism; this mantra is presence and love and acceptance bundled into one.

We have so many photographs and memories from the various stages of good old days.

But what happens after someone’s been holding it together for so many good old days….across so many years. What happens when grief is no longer anticipatory? What happens when there is something very different to hold?

It makes me think of the scene in the Wizard of Oz, when life bursts into Technicolor. Grief, like the horses prancing through the streets of Oz, changing color before your very eyes. The shape-shifting nature of mourning.

I spent the last week visiting dad who’s in rehab following a stint in the hospital. With no diagnosis after several weeks, my humble observation is caregiver crash. I probably should have anticipated his derailment, for a man who masterfully mastered the good old days, but spent years caretaking for someone other than himself. But this is my first rodeo. And his.

A rough patch; be it grief, be it a fight with a loved one, be it a stressful time at work - begs acceptance, often difficult to muster. Finding one’s hustle muscle. Inner motivation. A face-off against thoughts of despair and resignation - “will this ever end!” (more an exclamation than a question).

If things look bleak, see if asking, “Are these the good old days?” shifts something. Perspective never hurt - at least not that I’ve witnessed.

But if you’re in a rough patch, here’s something worth holding onto. The word “patch” has multiple definitions; here are two. A small area - temporary, finite, a piece of a greater whole. OR. A small piece of ground, especially one used for gardening.

There it is - a rough patch can be something you tend.

You turn the soil. You plant a seed. And with patience and impossible hope, something grows.

The daffodils in our yard and yours don’t know it’s been a miserable winter. They do what they do. They come back.

Nature is built to survive.

Dad, you will too.

On a recent flight, I chose Something’s Gotta Give.

The title alone felt like the right companion as I headed for a long weekend beach vacation, given I’d just written about Newton’s Law, about friction, about my desperate need to slow down.

Something’s gotta give. Doesn’t it?

There’s a scene in the movie between Amanda Peet and Diane Keaton when they are sitting side by side, mother and daughter:

“You gotta self-protect!” Says Amanda’s character.

Diane, the mother, newly cracked open by love for the first time in years, looks back at her daughter and says,

“You don’t actually think you can outsmart getting hurt?”

I hit the “back 15 seconds” button and watched it again and scribbled down their exchange in my notes. I love these little ah-ha’s from the universe. Or at least this time, from Nancy Meyers.

Their tidbit of conversation got me thinking about all the ways we brace ourselves against things that are simply too large to negotiate with.

Love. Feelings. Change. Death.

And given I was headed to the beach, the ocean.

Upon arrival I quickly found my way to the water’s edge. Standing where the surf collapses and fizzles on the shore I noticed that I mostly stand facing the water with my hands on my hips. No pockets to hold one’s hands. Crossed arms seems too defensive a stance to take up against the ocean. Man vs. planet.

A perennial people watcher, I catalogue the ways humans approach the sea:

Those who walk right up and in.

Those who walk alongside and skitter away as the waves come ashore.

Those who relish the variation and kick up water as it intermittently passes through their strides.

Those farther up on the dunes. Out of water’s way.

Those who walk side by side.

Those who make solo footprints as they go.

Once upon a time, someone gave me an instruction that stuck. When picking up seashells or pinecones or rocks or other gifts seemingly for the taking, ask said treasure first, “Is it ok if you come with me?”

I’ve never had an object protest. But I’m open to hearing “no” if one comes.

There’s something in this small ask that I keep returning to. Not outsmarting the thing that’s too big. Not bracing or skittering or retreating to the dunes. But arriving at the edge of something vast and asking, “what might you offer me?”

Hands on hips. Open to receiving.

Note: The title is borrowed with love from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's 1955 classic, which is a worthy and beautiful read if you haven’t discovered it yet.

Sir Newton keeps showing up in my self-talk over past few months. Probably because I’ve been, without question, an object in constant motion.

When The Year of the Fire Horse began last week, I thought, “of course - no rest in sight!” Everyone I spoke with was feeling it, reeling in it. The Fire Horse, “known for intensity, passion, speed, and boldness. A time of significant, rapid change rather than steady, slow growth.”

Yes. That. Is. What. I’m. Sensing.

Fitting it all in: time for yoga (06:00), time for tea (07:00), time for meetings upon meetings upon emails upon do you have a second (vast majority of the day), time to cook (18:00), time for “Mom, the check engine light is on”, time to breathe (oh yea, when to schedule that in?), to notice (intermittent), to stomach this nightmarish administration and the horrors in my news feed (at times doing my best to ignore, but - ugh, there goes another NYT alert lest it slip my mind).

And that’s just Tuesday.

An object in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.

Friction.

How else do you slow yourself down when there is this much momentum?

Friction, like a slice into your finger while cutting celery for soup.

(But universe, the soup was my way of slowing down and caring for myself!!)

I guess peeling carrots and crying over an onion wasn’t enough?

Nothing like a trip to the ER to get you to stop. Sit still. Wait a while. Lean back, listening to the crinkle of the hygienic paper underneath you as it catches the snow melting from your shoes.

To think, I almost didn’t make soup.

Where is your friction coming from lately? Is it in your control or out of it?

Wishing you a restful weekend, I’m sure we all could use one.

Last summer as part of our Annual Team Meeting, we invited the wise and skillful Earl Talbot to join us for a few hours to run a professional development workshop. He opened up our time together by saying:

“Raise your hand if you can draw.”

The hesitation in the room was palpable. Eyes darting about. Less than half of the room raised their hands.

What does it mean when successful professionals won't claim they can do something we all did freely as children?

Of course, everyone can draw - even if they think they draw poorly. It reminded me of Sir Ken Robinson’s observation about how our educational system squashes creativity. Somewhere along the way, after experiencing the burn of criticism or witnessing someone do it better, we learned that perfection is required to qualify as “being able”.

Months later, that moment came back to me as I stared down the watercolor set I'd picked up in December.

“Raise your hand if you can draw.”

I’m taking inspiration from my 92-year-old father-in-law. He was a career art director, illustrator and later in life a children’s book author. This past year, he returned to drawing, creating a cartoon series as a way to cope with the stress and discomfort of aging. He funneled his complaints, his perspective, his struggles and thankfully his humor into his work. His inner commentary, at times light and loving and at others funny and biting, keeps coming. You can see his work and follow him here: aging_isaac

With the exception of one snowy day in December, I haven’t cracked open my new watercolors. I look at them across the room, sitting in their box as I consider how to begin. YouTube tutorials? Simple swipes of color? Start abstract?

I know that beginning is almost always the hardest part. And once I actually get going, things will move. But what is it that’s keeping the box shut? Weekend and weeknight after weekend and weeknight. Fear, probably. Or the belief that I won’t be any good. The same thing that kept those hands down in the workshop room.

I wonder how the room would have reacted if Earl had asked, “When did you stop drawing?”

That would take me a while to consider.

But if my father-in-law can pick up his pencils again, so can I.

What in 2026 will be your great rebellion back to something you’ve wandered away from? No need for perfection. No permission required.

Start anywhere. Just start.

I’m right there with you.

Earl Talbot, who invited the question that's sitting with me months later, writes about resilience, emotional intelligence, recognizing the narratives that get in our way - and SO much more. You can find him on Substack: here.

I like lists. I like reminders. This list made it so I could fall asleep. Nothing to worry about.

The next morning I began gathering those final items to pack. I went down to the kitchen to retrieve my AirPods where I thought they were charging and nope - not there. I looked around. Nothing.

Where did I use them last? Right - chatting on the phone last night while I stuffed peppers for dinner. They were somewhere in the house.

I went upstairs and checked my office. And bedroom. And bathroom.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

I enlisted my husband - blurry eyed and barely awake. Both of us, empty handed. Meanwhile my scheduled Uber had been sitting outside for going on 10 minutes waiting for me. Tick. Tock.

My husband generously said, “take mine”. And I dashed out the door. Flustered as fuck! The frantic time sensitive search party unglued me.

Once in the Uber, halfway down the block, I resisted the urge to look behind me to double check that my suitcase was there. Nevermind that I watched and thanked the driver as he hefted it into the trunk. Heaven forbid misplacement be contagious.

Ten minutes into the drive I was running the self talk. Breathe. It’s not the end of the world.

As one of my meditation teachers once said, “Only the end of the world, is the end of the world” - everything else is just right now. And right now, I was on my way to the airport. Fully alive, fully ok.

Which was step one in yet another checklist - the one where I un-spiral. You’re ok. Look around. You’re safe. Take a breath. Find your feet. Return to now.

Here’s what came next: I made it to the airport on time. I had AirPods - borrowed, but functional. The suitcase was exactly where it should be. Every single thing I actually needed to get this trip rocking, was in working order.

So why did those 10 minutes of searching feel like the end of the world?

Because the very thing that usually serves me well - being prepared - turned on me. The AirPods were missing (fact). That quickly morphed into a narrative: I'm unprepared, what else will go wrong, if this is how my trip begins, I'm done for.

Have you come across this recently? A place where you thought you had it all tied up with bow and then something went awry? My son did, he booked dinner for Valentine’s Day with his girlfriend only to show up and be told they weren’t on the books.

How do you react - generally speaking - when you’ve put in the planning and life takes over? A beach vacation doused in rain. A typo in a sales deck. A missed train. A misunderstood invitation.

I'm not suggesting we become unflappable people who smile through it all. (Maybe I’m looking for the comfort of strangers who also get flapped from time to time.)

I am suggesting we get better at recognizing when we're catastrophizing a blip on the radar. The ol’ mountain vs. molehill.

What if better isn’t avoiding the spiral entirely, but recognizing it as it swells? Shortening the distance between panic and perspective.

I’ll likely misplace my AirPods again. I’m likely to have life happen when what was planned would have been preferred.

I’ll continue to work on truncating those trips to the end of the world.

I’ll continue to welcome myself back to steady ground. One breath, one grounding moment at a time.

You?

Standing in my kitchen, looking out the window at the sun coming through the bare trees over the snowy landscape, I glanced over to check the thermometer. It’s the kind with a wire running through the door to a sensor on the deck.

Next to the temperature gauge on the counter, there are several dishes filled with flowers in various stages of drying. Roland collects clippings each year from the flowers in pots on the deck to add to his collection of seeds to plant in the next growing season.

In that moment they struck me, little bowls of hope and promise. I snapped a photo. (see above)

So much of what’s been in my feed the past few days has been about saying goodbye to 2025. Symbolically brushing it off, shaking it off, shedding whatever you need to - like a snake does with its skin - leaving behind what no longer fits.

The things people have said that may have stung and continue to toss and turn in your ears. The things you may have said that you still are wishing you hadn’t. The tightness in your shoulders, the heaviness on your heart. All seeking the promise of new beginnings. The notion that we can move forward without looking back. As if where we’ve been, doesn’t matter.

One tradition we do is opening the back door to let the year that is leaving, leave. Then opening the front door, to let the new one in.

I stood in the doorway last night and welcomed the year like I would any guest. I said, “Do come in from the cold. Welcome. I’m so happy to see you. How was your journey, would you like some slippers?”

On one level it would be nice to let 2025 go. Burn off. Drift away. Clean slate.

And yet like the drying flowers in our kitchen, there were also gifts from 2025 that I intend to carry forward. The seeds planted in me while my mother was dying? Those planted while I struggled at work? Or questioned my parenting. (yes, still.) The seeds of progress I made in taking better care of myself. The friendships I nurtured.

What did you cultivate in 2025 that will serve you well in 2026?

We are not simply “out with the olding, and in the newing.”

We are constant gardeners.

My friend David used to say, “Plant a radish, get a radish.”

Yes, there is a promise within new beginnings, but what about the seeds you’re already carrying?

Ahead of this process I also go through the photos on my phone and relive the year in pictures.

What actually happened? What did I learn? What did I unlearn?

What jumped out at me was a recurring theme in recent years of holding two opposite things true at the same time. In other words:

General Life Acceptance Disorder: Naturally occurring over the age of 50.

We give everything a diagnosis these days, so why not? The acronym happily comes out as GLAD and I think - this! Yes.

The visual in my mind for 2025 is of a pendulum - swinging back and forth - keeping time - the gliding of one giant arm from joy to sorrow. And back again. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

And me, once again, with my GLAD.

As you know, I took a mini-sabbatical this year and spent six weeks traveling around France. The longest vacation/checkout I’ve taken since college. It was glorious. We spent time with 38 family members and 27 friends - many of whom I consider family. Here are some of my takeaways as I look back.

Go outside. I don’t mean take a hike or that you have to plan an elaborate adventure - just walk outside of your home and engage with the world. In the market, on the sidewalk, with the cashier, or the person in line also waiting for the cashier. Talk to people! We are drifting away from connection as a society. Make an effort to reengage. So many times this year I said, ”This never would have happened if we hadn’t left the house.” Magic awaits, outside.

Prioritize spending time with friends and family. Reconnect! Social media updates are not the same as having a meal or spending a day or three days (even better) around a table, on a trail, in a car, or by the pool. The place really doesn’t make a difference, it’s the people. Say yes, make time.

Within those seven weeks, I was only asked twice what I do for a living. Take time to reconnect with who you are. Not what you do.

Regardless of faith or belief, light a candle in every church or holy place you visit. One afternoon we hiked to a church that was built during the 5th century in a cave in the side of a mountain, the Sainte-Baume Massif. Signs along the trail reminded us this was a space for silence. As we climbed, I wondered about what and who I would pray for? Would the words come when I needed them? Did place or time really matter, is any one place more sacred than anywhere else?

Once inside I lit a candle and spoke a prayer that had been taking shape on the way up. At the end, I started over, needing to say it twice. Then I sat down, surrounded by burning candles, and pulled out my phone to write it down while it was still clear. I tear up each time I read it, transported back to those sacred moments and the hike down with a quietude that stuck on us.

In the end, I felt the entire trip was one sacred pilgrimage of family and friends. A deep breath of life. I’m so grateful we made it happen.

Reentry sucked. It was harder than I expected to return home. The pendulum swung. With a clang.

I moped around for the month of August. I wore my flowy French sun frocks and ate massive salads and tried to hold onto the energy a bit longer. September arrived and on my 53rd birthday I spoke to my mom for the last time. I knew it the moment it happened. It was all right there. After my dad and I hung up, I sat on my couch and wept. I told her I loved her. And she replied, “I love you too”. But her voice didn’t sound the same. It was weak and reaching and almost childlike. She died 4 days later.

More pendulum swings. Joy and Grief.

My takeaways here are a work in progress, to borrow from a podcast I loved, “still processing.”

I can say I’m seeing my mother in a way I never saw her while she was alive. How is that even possible? As I look up from my desk to think about how I’ll explain this, a hundred leaves fall at once outside my window. Is everything a message? Or as my dad says, a tap on the shoulder.

It is for now.

I have a new understanding of how deeply religious she was, a new understanding of death, and of the thin space in between.

Once again it’s been a year of highs and lows. Of two things being true at once. Of GLAD. Of going out into the world to shake up the rote of everyday living - work, stretch, eat, sleep, repeat. Of seeing new places. Meeting new people. Of being awake to it all.

In soaking up the colors in the heft of sabbatical photographs, among the smiling faces I also see:

the Green of the Mélèze trees

the Purple of the lavender fields in Provence

the Yellow of the sunflower fields north of Toulouse

the Blues of Lake Annecy - a stunner

the Periwinkle window shutters of Provence

the Grey of the oysters in Arcachon Bay

the Black wrought iron balconies of Paris

the Pink flamingoes of the Carmague

the Red wines from Rasteu, bowls of fresh picked raspberries, my new raincoat

the White sand of the Dune de Pyla and the Oleander of Beziers

the Orange inside the cantaloupes of Cavillon and apricots partout

the Rainbow of shoulder high wildflowers in les Hautes-Alpes in June

I invite you to make a list for yourself, take a color inventory.

Where in your world do you see the rainbow?

If there are any gaps - let that be your guide. To get outside. To honor the pendulum of time. To fill in the color between the ticks and the tocks.

Before I go, here is the prayer I wrote in the Grotte de Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in Sainte-Baume. Maybe you’ll find a little bit of yourself in there. And know I have said a prayer for you. Many times over.

A Prayer

For sorrow and splendor

For every blessing

For those named and those forgotten

For those whose flowers are slowly opening to the sun

For those in search of a gardener to make sense of all they’ve sown

For those whose pain travels around their body looking for an exit

For those who feel weight, may they receive and accept lightness

For those who feel wild and free, may they guide their bright light towards prosperity and health

For one, may she find rest. And remember the joy of life in the end

For one, may he find peace in the now

For one, may she find strength and courage and know she is not alone

For healing

For acceptance

For life

And living

I pray

Wishing you a colorful and GLAD-ful 2026.

Much love - and thank you for coming along with me on this ride.

After a month in California, I returned home to real fall - Northeast fall. With temperatures in the 30s and 40s, I looked at my oven longingly, thinking, ‘It’s time we got reacquainted.”

Time to heat up the place.

Time for the holiday season of batter and baking tins, spices and slow cooked soups.

Time for a home filled with smells that make your heart warm and your stomach perk up.

When I was a kid I remember the oven having a dial. Zero degrees was the off position, and you turned the dial to set the temperature. Not any more. Now we have digital displays and on/off buttons. I turned on my oven the other day and it struck me: the display doesn’t start from zero. It defaults to 350 degrees.

A preset temperature, just like me.

When you wake up in the morning. Walk into a room. Start a meeting.

Do you have a default temperature? My guess is yes, and I’d bet it changes throughout the day. Temperatures fluctuate.

But is your general preset hot?

Cold?

Lukewarm?

It’s worth thinking about.

An easy mindfulness hack this week, as you preheat ovens for holiday delights, pause and notice:

What’s my preset?

And is it serving me well in this season?

Sharing my gratitude for you as I set off for a week of thanks.

Happy Giving Thanks. Thanksgiving.

Some in schools. Some laying low. Some asleep. Some darting past.

Some are in camo. Some are colorful. Some shimmer.

Sitting across from the big window at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, watching light filter through the long, swaying kelp I think,

“I’m looking at the food chain.”

Walking outside I see it again, this time, the human food chain. Wearing just as many colors and coming in just as many shapes, moving at just as many rates of speed.

A few days later making my way through the airport, there it is again. I see it in the way families are interacting, in the way airline and TSA employees engage, and in the oh so obvious boarding groups at every gate, some word soup variation of: economy, economy plus, first class.

Waiting for my boarding group to be called I wondered, where do I most often fall in the food chain? How have I evolved to survive? To thrive?

Sharp teeth. Bright colors. Or the opposite, the ability to blend in.

Survival tactics and leadership tactics aren’t the same thing, are they? One is about self-preservation. The other is about building something bigger than yourself.

If you’re closer to the top, the boss, the parent, the elder, what legacy are you actively building from the position you’ve worked so hard for? Or lived long enough to earn.

Do you feel any responsibility for how your ecosystems function? And if you think you do, what would the person on the lowest rung say? Would they agree with you? It’s a great way to sense check yourself.

Looking back at my photos from my afternoon in the aquarium, after having witnessed so many human food chains in the days between, I’m thinking fish have less choices and evolve on a much slower time scale.

Do they have all that much in their control?

We do.

P.S. A lightbulb flickered on this morning realizing the notion of the food chain has been swirling through my head these past two weeks, just as the government shutdown has cancelled SNAP benefits here in the US. One way to support the Food Chain now is to make a donation to your local food bank or CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). I know a farm nearby is giving food to those with SNAP cards that are currently without funds. I’m sure others closer to where you live are as well.